The Wizard of London Read online

  “So that they can return to prey on the utterly unwary?” She shivered. “An uncomfortable thought.”

  “But not one we need to confront tonight or tomorrow.” He smiled down at her. “Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof.”

  “True enough.” She took his hand, and looked coyly up at him. “And since it happens to be night—”

  He laughed.

  ***

  The medium lived in a modest house just off one of the squares in the part of London that housed those clerks and the like with pretensions to a loftier address than their purses would allow, an area totally unfamiliar to Nan. The house itself had seen better days, though, as had most of the other homes on that dead-end street, and Nan suspected that it was rented. The houses had that peculiarly faded look that came when the owners of a house did not actually live there, and those who did had no reason to care for the property themselves, assuming that was the duty of the landlord. Mem’sab had chosen her gown carefully, after discarding a walking suit, a mourning gown and veil, and a peculiar draped garment she called a sari, a souvenir of her time in India. The first, she thought, made her look untrusting, sharp, and suspicious, the second would not be believed had the medium done any research on the backgrounds of these new sitters, and the third smacked of mockery. She chose instead one of the plain, simple gowns she preferred, in the mode called “Artistic Reform”; not particularly stylish, but Nan thought it was a good choice. For one thing, she could move in it; it was looser than the highest mode, and did not require tight corseting. If Mem’sab needed to run, kick, or dodge, she could.

  The girls followed her quietly, dressed in their starched pinafores and dark dresses, showing the best possible manners, with Grey tucked under Sarah’s coat to stay warm until they got within doors.

  It was quite dark as they mounted the steps to the house and rang the bell. The door was answered by a sour-faced woman in a plain black dress, who ushered them into a sitting room and took their coats, with a startled glance at Grey as she popped her head out of the front of Sarah’s jacket. She said nothing, however, and neither did Grey as she climbed to Sarah’s shoulder.

  The woman returned a moment later, but not before Nan had heard the faint sounds of surreptitious steps on the floor above them. She knew it had not been the sour woman, for she had clearly heard those steps going off to a closet and returning. If the séance room was on this floor, then, there was someone else above.

  The sitting room had been decorated in a very odd style. The paintings on the wall were all either religious in nature, or extremely morbid, at least so far as Nan was concerned. There were pictures of women weeping over graves, of angels lifting away the soul of a dead child, of a woman throwing herself to her death over a cliff, of the spirits of three children hovering about a man and woman mourning over pictures held in their listless hands. There was even a picture of a girl crying over a dead bird lying in her hand.

  Crystal globes on stands decorated the tables, along with bouquets of funereal lilies whose heavy, sweet scent dominated the chill room. The tables were all draped in fringed cloths of a deep scarlet. The hard, severe furniture was either of wood or upholstered in prickly horsehair. The two lamps had been lit before they entered the room, but their light, hampered as it was by heavy brocade lamp shades, cast more shadows than illumination.

  They didn’t have to wait long in that uncomfortable room, for the sour servant departed for a moment, then returned, and conducted them into the next room. This, evidently, was only an antechamber to the room of mysteries; heavy draperies swathed all the walls, and there were straight-backed chairs set against them on all four walls. The lily scent pervaded this room as well, mixed with another, that Nan recognized as the Hindu incense that Nadra often burned in her own devotions.

  There was a single picture in this room, on the wall opposite the door, with a candle placed on a small table beneath it so as to illuminate it properly. This was a portrait in oils of a plump woman swathed in pale draperies, her hands clasped melodramatically before her breast, her eyes cast upward. Smoke, presumably that of incense, swirled around her, with the suggestion of faces in it. Nan was no judge of art, but Mem’sab walked up to it and examined it with a critical eye.

  “Neither good nor bad,” she said measuringly. “I would say it is either the work of an unknown professional or a talented amateur.”

  “A talented amateur,” said the lady that Mem’sab had called “Katherine,” as she, too, was ushered into the chamber. “My dear friend Lady Harrington painted it; it was she who introduced me to Madame Varonsky.”

  Mem’sab turned to meet her, and Katherine glided across the floor to take her hand in greeting. “It is said to be a very speaking likeness,” she continued. “I certainly find it so.”

  Nan studied the woman further, but saw nothing to change her original estimation. Katherine wore yet another mourning gown of expensive silk and mohair, embellished with jet beadwork and fringes that shivered with the slightest movement. A black hat with a full veil perched on her carefully coiffed curls, fair hair too dark to be called golden, but not precisely brown either. Her full lips trembled, even as they uttered words of polite conversation, her eyes threatened to fill at every moment, and Nan thought that her weak chin reflected an overly sentimental and vapid personality. It was an assessment that was confirmed by her conversation with Mem’sab, conversation that Nan ignored in favor of listening for other sounds. Over their heads, the floor creaked softly as someone moved to and fro, trying very hard to be quiet. There were also some odd scratching sounds that didn’t sound like mice, and once, a dull thud, as of something heavy being set down a little too hard.

  Something was going on up there, and the person doing it didn’t want them to notice.

  At length the incense smell grew stronger, and the drapery on the wall to the right of the portrait parted, revealing a door, which opened as if by itself.

  Taking that as their invitation, Katherine broke off her small talk to hurry eagerly into the sacred precincts; Mem’sab gestured to the girls to precede her, and followed on their heels. By previous arrangement, Nan and Sarah, rather than moving toward the circular table at which Madame Varonsky waited, went to the two walls likeliest to hold windows behind their heavy draperies before anyone could stop them.

  It was Nan’s luck to find a corner window overlooking the street, and she made sure that some light from the room within flashed to the watcher on the opposite side before she dropped the drapery.

  “Come away from the windows, children,” Mem’sab said in a voice that gently chided. Nan and Sarah immediately turned back to the room, and Nan assessed the foe.

  Madame Varonsky’s portraitist had flattered her; she was decidedly paler than she had been painted, with a complexion unpleasantly like wax. She wore similar draperies, garments which could have concealed anything. The smile on her thin lips did not reach her eyes, and she regarded the parrot on Sarah’s shoulder with distinct unease.

  “You did not warn me about the bird, Katherine,” the woman said, her voice rather reedy.

  “The bird will be no trouble, Madame Varonsky,” Mem’sab soothed. “It is better behaved than a good many of my pupils.”

  “Your pupils—I am not altogether clear on why they were brought,” Madame Varonsky replied, turning her sharp black eyes on Nan and Sarah.

  “Nan is an orphan, and wants to learn what she can of her parents, since she never knew them,” Mem’sab said smoothly. “And Sarah lost a little brother to an African fever. The bird was her brother’s, and it is all she has of him.”

  “Ah.” Madame Varonsky’s suspicions diminished, and she gestured to the chairs around the table. “Please, all of you, do take your seats, and we can begin at once.”

  As with the antechamber, this room had walls swathed in draperies, which Nan decided could conceal an entire army if Madame Varonsky were so inclined. The only furnishings besides the séance table and chairs were a sinuo
us statue of a female completely enveloped in draperies on a draped table, with incense burning before it in a small charcoal brazier of brass and cast iron.

  The table at which Nan took her place was very much as Mem’sab had described. A surreptitious bump as Nan took her seat on Mem’sab’s left hand proved that it was quite light and easy to move; it would be possible to lift it with one hand with no difficulty at all. On the draped surface were some of the objects Mem’sab had described; a tambourine, a megaphone, a little handbell. There were three lit candles in a brass candlestick in the middle of the table, and some objects Nan had not expected—a fiddle and bow, a rattle, and a pair of handkerchiefs.

  This is where we’re supposed to look, Nan realized, as Sarah took her place on Mem’sab’s right, next to Madame Varonsky, and Katherine on Nan’s left, flanking the medium on the other side. She wished she could look up, as Grey was unashamedly doing, her head over to one side as one eye peered upward at the ceiling above them.

  “If you would follow dear Katherine’s example, child,” said Madame, as Katherine took one of the handkerchiefs and used it to tie the medium’s wrist to the arm of her chair. She smiled crookedly. “This is to assure you that I am not employing any trickery.”

  Sarah, behaving with absolute docility, did the same on the other side, but cast Nan a knowing look as she finished. Nan knew what that meant; Sarah had tried the arm of the chair and found it loose.

  “Now, if you all will hold hands, we will beseech the spirits to attend us.” The medium turned her attention to Mem’sab as Katherine and Sarah stretched their arms across the table to touch hands, and the rest reached for the hands of their partners. “Pray do not be alarmed when the candles are extinguished; the spirits are shy of light, for they are so delicate that it can destroy them. They will put out the candles themselves.”

  For several long moments they sat in complete silence, as the incense smoke thickened and curled around. Then although there wasn’t a single breath of moving air in the room, the candle flames began to dim, one by one, and go out!

  Nan felt the hair on the back of her neck rising, for this was a phenomenon she could not account for—to distract herself, she looked up quickly at the ceiling just in time to see a faint line of light in the form of a square vanish.

  She felt better immediately. However the medium had extinguished the candles, it had to be a trick. If she had any real powers, she wouldn’t need a trapdoor in the ceiling of her séance room. As she looked back down, she realized that the objects on the table were all glowing with a dim, greenish light.

  “Spirits, are you with us?” Madame Varonsky called. Nan immediately felt the table begin to lift.

  Katherine gasped; Mem’sab gave Nan’s hand a squeeze. Understanding immediately what she wanted, Nan let go of it. Now Mem’sab was free to act as she needed.

  “The spirits are strong tonight,” Madame murmured, as the table settled again. “Perhaps they will give us a further demonstration of their powers.”

  Exactly on cue, the tambourine rose into the air, shaking uncertainly; first the megaphone joined it, then the rattle, then the handbell, all floating in midair, or seeming to. But Nan was looking up, not at the objects, and saw a very dim square, too dim to be called light, above the table. A deeper shadow moved back and forth over that area, and Nan’s lip curled with contempt. She had no difficulty in imagining how the objects were “levitating”; one by one, they’d been pulled up by wires or black strings, probably hooked by means of a fishing rod from the room above.

  Now rapping began on the table, to further distract their attention. Madame began to ask questions.

  “Is there a spirit here for Isabelle Harton?” she asked. One rap—that was a no; not surprising, since the medium probably wouldn’t want to chance making a mistake with an adult. “Is there a spirit here for Katherine Boughmont?” Two raps—yes. “Is this the spirit of a child?” Two raps, and already Katherine had begun to weep softly. “Is it the spirit of her son, Edward?” Two raps plus the bell rang and the rattle and tambourine rattled, and Nan found herself feeling very sorry for the poor, silly woman.

  “Are there other spirits here tonight?” Two raps. “Is there a spirit for the child Nan?” Two raps. “Is it her father?” One rap. “Her mother?” Two raps, and Nan had to control her temper, which flared at that moment. She knew very well that her mother was still alive, though at the rate she was going, she probably wouldn’t be for long, what with the gin and the opium and the rest of her miserable life. But if she had been a young orphan, her parents dead in some foreign land like one or two of the other pupils, what would she not have given for the barest word from them, however illusory? Would she not have been willing to believe anything that sounded warm and kind?

  There appeared to be no spirit for Sarah, which was just as well. Madame Varonsky was ready to pull out the next of her tricks, for the floating objects settled to the table again.

  “My spirit guide was known in life as the great Paganini, the master violinist,” Madame Varonsky announced. “As music is the food of the soul, he will employ the same sweet music he made in life to bridge the gap between our world and the next. Listen, and he will play this instrument before us!”

  Fiddle music appeared to come from the instrument on the table, although the bow did not actually move across the strings. Katherine gasped.

  “Release the child’s hand a moment and touch the violin, dear Katherine,“ the medium said, in a kind, but distant voice. Katherine evidently let go of Sarah’s hand, since she still had hold of Nan’s, and the shadow of her fingers rested for a moment on the neck of the fiddle.

  “The strings!” she cried. “Isabelle, the strings are vibrating as they are played!”

  If this was supposed to be some great, long-dead music master, Nan didn’t think much of his ability. If she wasn’t mistaken, the tune he was playing was the child’s chant of “London Bridge Is Falling Down,” but played very, very slowly, turning it into a solemn dirge.

  “Touch the strings, Isabelle!” Katherine urged. “See for yourself!”

  Nan felt Mem’sab lean forward, and another hand shadow fell over the strings. “They are vibrating…” she said, her voice suddenly uncertain.

  The music ground to a halt before she took her hand away—and until this moment, Grey had been as silent as a stuffed bird on a lady’s hat. Now she did something quite odd.

  She began to sing. It was a very clever imitation of a fiddle, playing a jig tune that a street musician often played at the gate of the school, for the pennies the pupils would throw to him.

  She quit almost immediately, but not before Mem’sab took her hand away from the strings, and Nan sensed that somehow Grey had given her the clue she needed to solve that particular trick.

  But the medium must have thought that her special spirit was responsible for that scrap of jig tune, for she didn’t say or do anything.

  Nan sensed that all of this was building to the main turn, and so it was.

  Remembering belatedly that she should be keeping an eye on that suspicious square above, she glanced up just in time to see it disappear. As the medium began to moan and sigh, calling on Paganini, Nan kept her eye on the ceiling. Sure enough, the dim line of light appeared again, forming a grayish square. Then the lines of the square thickened, and Nan guessed that a square platform was being lowered from above. Pungent incense smoke thickened about them, filling Nan’s nose and stinging her eyes so that they watered, and she smothered a sneeze. It was hard to breathe, and there was something strangely, disquietingly familiar about the scent.

  The medium’s words, spoken in a harsh, accented voice, cut through the smoke. “I, the great Paganini, am here among you!”

  Once again, Katherine gasped.

  “Harken and be still! Lo, the spirits gather!”

  Nan’s eyes burned, and for a moment, she felt very dizzy; she thought that the soft glow in front of her was due to nothing more than eyestrain, but the
glow strengthened, and she blinked in shock as two vague shapes took form amid the writhing smoke.

  For a new brazier, belching forth such thick smoke that the coals were invisible, had “appeared” in the center of the table, just behind the candlestick. It was above this brazier that the glowing shapes hovered, and slowly took on an identifiable form. Nan felt dizzier, sick; the room seemed to turn slowly around her.

  The faces of a young woman and a little boy looked vaguely out over Nan’s head from the cloud of smoke. Katherine began to weep—presumably she thought she recognized the child as her own. But the fact that the young woman looked nothing like Nan’s mother (and in fact, looked quite a bit like the sketch in an advertisement for Bovril in the Times) woke Nan out of her mental haze.

  And so did Grey.

  She heard the flapping of wings as Grey plummeted to the floor. The bird sneezed urgently, and shouted aloud, “Bad air! Bad air! Bad, bad air!”

  And that was the moment when she knew what it was that was so familiar in the incense smoke, and why she felt as tipsy as a sailor on shore leave.

  “Hashish!” she choked, trying to shout, and not managing very well. She knew this scent; on the rare occasions when her mother could afford it—and before she’d turned to opium—she’d smoked it in preference to drinking. Nan could only think of one thing; that she must get fresh air in here before they all passed out!

  She shoved her chair back and staggered up and out of it; it fell behind her with a clatter that seemed muffled in the smoke. She groped for the brazier as the two faces continued to stare, unmoved and unmoving, from the thick billows. Her hands felt like a pair of lead-filled mittens; she had to fight to stay upright as she swayed like a drunk. She didn’t find it, but her hands closed on the cool, smooth surface of the crystal ball. That was good enough; before the medium could stop her, she heaved up the heavy ball with a grunt of effort, and staggered to the window. She half-spun and flung the ball at the draperies hiding the unseen window; it hit the drapes and carried them into the glass, crashing through it, taking the drapery with it.